President, I am honored to follow that very
eloquent speech by my colleague from Colorado and to be followed on the
floor by our colleague from Massachusetts. We are here today with stories. Every one of us has a story going
back one
generation, maybe two or three, maybe five or ten, but we all have an
immigrant story. Most of those immigrant stories are about people
coming here to seek hope, opportunity, and, yes, safety; to escape
violence and persecution; to come here for refuge. I met one of those refugees over this weekend in West Hartford at a
Holocaust remembrance ceremony. Abby Weiner is a Romanian Jew who
survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald but lost his parents there. He was
honored by Voices of Hope at this Holocaust remembrance ceremony at a
synagogue in West Hartford, attended by 500, 700 people. There was a
massive outpouring of support for him and for the values that are
represented by people who come here as immigrants fleeing persecution
and violence, as he did in Nazi Germany. He said: The words came before
the bullets and gas chambers. The words of Nazi Germany came before the
bullets and gas chambers.
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immigrants immigrant refugees